Maskless Masquerade
by Kitt Chaos
Summary: AU. Loosely connected to the story Insult of the Right Hand. The Lord of All Vampires ponders humanity as he enjoys an unwholesome glee in the Halloween role he has devised for Himself.


Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is the property of Konami. I am merely a fan of this wonderful game.

**Maskless Masquerade**

I love this time of year, in particular I love the funny, endearing little holiday people have created for themselves. How fitting that the main beneficiaries of this holiday are children.

Halloween amuses me -- for precisely the same reason people themselves never cease to amuse me. From the dawn of time, wired so deeply into their psyches that it has become a universal human constant, dwells The Fear. Ultimately, it is fear of The Other, though it had first manifested as fear of the dark, then fear of the dark as embodied in monsters, some real, and some created by the very fear itself in the recesses of the collective human mind. Finally, The Fear is beginning to display its true, final face, that of fear of the unknown, or the unknowable. Fear of The Other. I, myself, am an Other, so I have watched this progression of The Fear within the race of Man with an amused eye and kindly, nearly paternal interest.

Children feel The Fear, of course, for it often wakes them to scream piteously in the night, when they find themselves surrounded by the very darkness that cradles and fosters The Fear. Again, it amuses me that humans need the dark, for they can not gain the full restorative, healing powers of their sleep in the light, yet they fear the dark in the core of their beings at the same time. Most adults don't chide the little ones for their early nighttime screaming reactions to The Fear, for, if those adults are honest, they admit they had felt it themselves as children. If they are scrupulously honest, they admit they still felt it now, though they will rationalize their reactions to The Fear in some way.

It is this very illogic in humans that so amuses me. I am highly amused by the concept of Halloween. This wonderfully Fear-ridden, gloriously illogical people, who think of themselves as the masters of their destiny, and through that, the very masters of reality; the ones who try to apply their logic and science to matters that are ultimately beyond the reach of either; so stubbornly refusing to admit that, beyond their individual childhoods, they _still _feel The Fear, have the unbelievable audacity to create a holiday to celebrate it.

Ostensibly, it is for the children. A day, (well, night for how can one face The Fear whose earliest manifestation is as fear of the dark during the day?) where the children are encouraged to don the very aspects of The Fear that affect them most strongly. Or, one of the more recent twists, don the aspect of one of those they imagine can strive against The Fear most effectively. Thus disguised, the children are to slip from house to house 'scaring' the adults within with their fearful aspects and accept the bribes -- the 'treats' the adults offer. Some of the wilder children do fulfill the other, darker part of this amusing human ritual, 'tricking' the adults by throwing eggs, or otherwise, usually harmlessly, defacing the property. Some, very wild elements do both, trick _and_ treat. I think such behavior is rather uncouth, although...

This holiday amuses me enough that each year I take the pains necessary to conceal my Otherness sufficiently well enough to pose as one of the adults in a modest little house in a modest little reality where no one would ever think to find me. I open the door, ostensibly guised, as some of the adults are, as one of the 'monsters' that is the second main manifestation of The Fear. I love playing up my role, darting forward theatrically and hissing at the children, or speaking in a highly exaggerated accent making sure to make much of how difficult it is to talk around the grotesquely oversized and obvious 'fangs' in my mouth.

The wide, straining expressions on the children's faces always pleases me. Their reaction to The Fear amuses me, but what has become even more entertaining for me is that moment when they realize this is just an adult in a costume, trying to scare them. Watching them master The Fear has become even more satisfying than inspiring it in the first place.

Then, I complete my part of the ritual, dropping tidbits of candy in each container held out for the treat. I enjoy being part of the give-and-take balance of this absurd holiday, for I know, long after all the candy hauls have been consumed, the children will, every once in a while, feel a creepy, creepy flutter of The Fear in the back of their minds. My trick takes a while to manifest. Only the most sensitive will realize it on that particular Halloween night. For, when I dart forward so theatrically, each child has just had an encounter with an Other. And, such an encounter, the final and truest manifestation of The Fear, is not something a human soul can so easily logic away.

My costume is no costume at all -- beyond exaggerating my speech somewhat. The fangs the children always take for stage props are real, and lethal, enough.

Ah, the doorbell rings. Time to administer a trick, and a treat, in equal measure to yet another child and help this amusing, fumbling human race along to learning how to dwell with their Fear a bit better, so that they won't be consumed by it when The Others, for there are so many, encroach more boldly into their reality.

I'd hate to see this amusing, amazing race die out, their souls riddled by abject terror, if I can do even a little bit to help them tolerate The Other better.

I pull open the door with my psychic ability, flare my cape dramatically and jump forward, hissing. I'm looking at a bit of gold-worked braid, not a child's delightfully terrified face. I look up, past an impressively ornate cross-shoulder sword belt, a lovely flow of ruffled cravat and a stiffened collar into my son's face.

"Alucard!" I exclaim while straightening.

"Father. I thought I felt your aura." My son glares into my eyes, his own cool, grey ones taking on a beautifully reddish hue. "What do you think you are doing?"

"I'm merely enjoying this holiday of Halloween. Is there a problem?" I reply innocently.

"I see. The way you just answered the door -- You seek to terrify these poor children!" Alucard's hand drops to his sword-hilt.

"They want to be scared."

"I hardly believe _that_, Father."

"Why not stay and help me for a while? I speak the truth. You can see for yourself." I turn and grab the bowl of candy and thrust it into my son's hands. "You can give out the candy after I scare them. See?" I reach in and pick up a full-sized bar of some sort of chocolate confection -- called a 'Kit Kat' which amuses me for an entirely different reason. "I give out the best candy in the neighborhood!"

Alucard blinks at me in the most adorably confused way. "You give them _candy_?"

"Your education is sorely lacking, my son. Ah, I suppose they did not celebrate Halloween in your mother's reality. No matter. We shall attend to that lack, now." I reach forward, grasp his arm, haul him into my house and close the door behind him.

Alucard stares at me in a completely bemused manner. Helpfully, some children approach the door and ring the bell. Repeating my performance, I am justly rewarded with the frightened gasps and terrified expressions that quickly and easily clear. Alucard, to my surprise, bends over with an overtly fangy smile of his own to drop a candy bar into each waiting jack-o'-lantern-shaped bucket or spookily decorated bag. The shivery, uncertain smiles the children turn up toward him seem to please him.

"I think I see why you do this, Father," Alucard admits softly as I close the door after the children depart.

"Hmmm," I reply grinning fangily at my son.

It's not just for the scare -- I'm sure that's what Alucard believes. And, it's not just so I can appear in public as myself and not terrify the humans into a torch-wielding mob by doing so. I glance at my son. Hmm, indeed. Perhaps he does realize the true reason for it. I remember holding him when he was a child after he cried himself awake in his own fear of the dark for the first time. I feel an unexpected rush of sympathy for my child. Half-human, heir to The Fear; half-vampire, heir to The Other. Perhaps he understands my reason full-well, after all.

The doorbell rings, again. We exchange anticipatory glances, then as one, dash forward as the door opens under our psychic power, bare our fangs, and hiss in a most alarming way at the children. Their initial gasp of fear and then resulting nervous giggles, along with the soothing note of mirth in my son's voice as he distributes the treat-rewards for enduring our trick so well, is the sweetest music to my ears on this Halloween night.

- end -


End file.
